An important announcement to the Vert.x community

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

I am deeply committed to you as a community, and I would love to continue leading Vert.x, in one form or another, to the next generation. The 1.x series of Vert.x has stoked a huge amount of interest, and the future looks incredibly bright for 2.0. I am hugely excited about the opportunities there, and I believe that you share this excitement. 2013 is potentially a huge year for Vert.x, and I want to share that journey with you.

Will someone else from vmware be responsible for the project. Someone that you can work with to maintain the community and the project? Legal stuff and Open source are not always friends. I hope you can work it out and keep the same energy for the project.

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

Could you list the options in your mind?

Just found that you are starting version 2.0, is that a big change compared to 1.x?

If so, maybe you could re-brand vert.x 2.0 into something new, with a name that starts with 'R' - V for VMware, R for Redhat :-)

Our company has already invested in vert.x (our new service is running using vert.x 1.2.3.final), so I'm a little concerned.

I sincerely doubt the userbase of Vert.x reaches to that extent where a fork would be disasterous. Personally speaking anyway. Not when noone was really depending on VMWare for commercial support in the first place.

I am fully committed to this project, forked or not =) You have my support if you wish it.

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

Could you list the options in your mind?

The most obvious two options would be:

1) Fork

2) Find a neutral organisation (neither controlled by VMW or RHT) to host the organisation.

I think we need to explore both those options.

Just found that you are starting version 2.0, is that a big change compared to 1.x?

If so, maybe you could re-brand vert.x 2.0 into something new, with a name that starts with 'R' - V for VMware, R for Redhat :-)

Our company has already invested in vert.x (our new service is running using vert.x 1.2.3.final), so I'm a little concerned.

I wouldn't be too concerned. Vert.x is not going to disappear altogether.

I've always been a quiet observer of the project but thanks for detailing the situation Tim. I personally would prefer an independent, open source friendly organisation such as Apache Software Foundation to be the host of the project but I understand that being accepted by ASF would require time and effort. I think keeping things as it is (co-managing it with VMware) is not mutually exclusive to finding an organisation to host it, or even hosting the fork instead of the original if there are legal hurdles, i.e. you should be able to start the search right now but keep the normal project development going until the picture is clearer.

[obvious/redundant consolatory statement] - Ouch. As much as I am
grateful that VMware have paid you to work on vert.x this throws that
community good will in the dust. I'm not asking you to comment on
what kind of confused person does not 'get it', but I'm glad to hear
you will keep working on vert.x (or 'the project formerly known as
vert.x'). And I'm still appreciative of the time/money VMware spent
to date, but if VMware are simply kicking you out of the project, then
they are acting childish - it might be different if they had an actual
plan, but AFAIK, you are the team, so they are essentially trying to
put a bullet in it. I don't blame them for being disappointed at
losing a developer like you, but really, how does this help matters.
Anyway, f*ckin suits..

[perhaps useful suggestion] Might I respectfully suggest that you
contact the lead on some other open source projects and get some
guidance on this. Perhaps you've already done this. I think you're
right, the game is nowhere near up. Worst case, you re-brand it and
move on. If you do re-brand, please don't put a period in the name!
;)

As a matter of immediate importance, I suggest you set up an alternate
google group to discuss the future, so that the community can
subscribe to it, should whatever misguided persons that are now in
control decide to shut the current forum down.

Agreed. We (Apigee) have made an investment in vert.x already as well.
IMO, a fork which is a package name/maven coordinate change is not
terribly traumatic and worth the effort to given the heavy handed
tactics of VMware.

Protecting investment is one thing, but doing so in a distasteful and
alienating way the community is another.

With the size/activity level of the community here, fast-tracking into
the Apache Software Foundation's incubator would be easy. Happy to
help on this if needed.

As another commenter mentioned, sounds like a similar situation as Hudson/Jenkins. We ended up going with Jenkins as well, no issues there, other than a little bit of headache upgrading servers. Sounds like it's a convenient for the project to go through this change, before the big 2.0 release to create a stable, scalable foundation for this project to continue without a corporate overlord potentially using it without consideration for its users.

Codehaus is a nice place as well, of course there is the Apache foundation.

I am interested in what VMWare thinks of all of this. VMWare is now the owner of several super-high profile java frameworks/tools (Spring, Grails, Groovy), and this type of action is discouraging.

If there's a determination by the community to fork (if VMWare decide not to provide alternative administration), then I'd recommend talking with the Apache Incubator group at gen...@incubator.apache.org

If there's a determination by the community to fork (if VMWare decide not to provide alternative administration), then I'd recommend talking with the Apache Incubator group at gen...@incubator.apache.org

Which are the benefits of include a fork of Vert.x in the Apache Incubator? I like the idea of a fork, but I haven't a well formed opinion about project host options...

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

I am deeply committed to you as a community, and I would love to continue leading Vert.x, in one form or another, to the next generation. The 1.x series of Vert.x has stoked a huge amount of interest, and the future looks incredibly bright for 2.0. I am hugely excited about the opportunities there, and I believe that you share this excitement. 2013 is potentially a huge year for Vert.x, and I want to share that journey with you.

If there's a determination by the community to fork (if VMWare decide not to provide alternative administration), then I'd recommend talking with the Apache Incubator group at gen...@incubator.apache.org

Which are the benefits of include a fork of Vert.x in the Apache Incubator? I like the idea of a fork, but I haven't a well formed opinion about project host options...

Its the entry path into the Apache Software Foundation and is more than a hosting option it provides complete organizational, legal and financial support which is why it needs something like the Incubator process to validate projects. One of those validations is that it has a viable community.

Not to defend VMWare. But any company would do this. And if you work for any company you will probably see in your contract or employee handbook that any projects/ideas/inventions that you create while working for that company, during company hours is the property of the company and not the person.

I don't know if vert.x started up before Tim joined VMWare, but if it was started while Tim was at VMWare and VMWare paid Tim specifially for this project, then unfortunately, it does belong to VMWare.

Now with all that note.

I am totally +1 on a fork. I still think it should be hosted on GitHub with a simple Apache license. No need to be an official Apache or Codehaus project.

If there is a fork, it is really, extremely important to us that it is done very quickly. I am very worried as we staked a big part of our company on vert.x and if there isn't a resolution really soon, we might be forced to have to not use vert.x Even though I hope more than anything we don't have to do something as drastic as changing.

Thanks Tim and the rest of the community for all your hard work on vert.x it is greatly appreciated.

Not to defend VMWare. But any company would do this. And if you work for any company you will probably see in your contract or employee handbook that any projects/ideas/inventions that you create while working for that company, during company hours is the property of the company and not the person.

IANAL, but some things are very clearly VMMware's IP as per my employment contract (domain, blog, vert.x trademark, my code contributions). Other claims are most likely frivolous (claim to the github project *itself*, or the google group *itself* (i.e. not the contents)).

HOWEVER I complied with all demands since I have no appetite for litigation with them. My complying with their demands does not imply that I think they were all valid though.

As to "any company would do this": That's not really true. A good example of a company that _did not_ take search a path in a similar situation is Red Hat, when the project lead of Netty left RHT to join another company. Instead RHT chose to let him continue to use the name and domain after he had left the company. Now that project is a great success and has full time employees working on it from both RHT and the other company.

I don't know if vert.x started up before Tim joined VMWare, but if it was started while Tim was at VMWare and VMWare paid Tim specifially for this project, then unfortunately, it does belong to VMWare.

Now with all that note.

I am totally +1 on a fork. I still think it should be hosted on GitHub with a simple Apache license. No need to be an official Apache or Codehaus project.

If there is a fork, it is really, extremely important to us that it is done very quickly. I am very worried as we staked a big part of our company on vert.x and if there isn't a resolution really soon, we might be forced to have to not use vert.x Even though I hope more than anything we don't have to do something as drastic as changing.

A fork is an option, but we should review all possibilities first. A neutral org does have some positive points, and VMW does seem to be amenable to such a solution. We shouldn't jump to any conclusions yet.

Thanks Tim and the rest of the community for all your hard work on vert.x it is greatly appreciated.

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

Could you list the options in your mind?

The most obvious two options would be:

1) Fork

2) Find a neutral organisation (neither controlled by VMW or RHT) to host the organisation.

I think we need to explore both those options.

Not sure you really need to find a neutral org. We don't have any for Netty and it works out quite well. Just have a org on github with the project under it worked out without any problem.

Just found that you are starting version 2.0, is that a big change compared to 1.x?

If so, maybe you could re-brand vert.x 2.0 into something new, with a name that starts with 'R' - V for VMware, R for Redhat :-)

Our company has already invested in vert.x (our new service is running using vert.x 1.2.3.final), so I'm a little concerned.

I wouldn't be too concerned. Vert.x is not going to disappear altogether.

However the project vehicle or governance model might change.

If you want I can share the Netty CLA with you that we set up in the past..

I am deeply committed to you as a community, and I would love to continue leading Vert.x, in one form or another, to the next generation. The 1.x series of Vert.x has stoked a huge amount of interest, and the future looks incredibly bright for 2.0. I am hugely excited about the opportunities there, and I believe that you share this excitement. 2013 is potentially a huge year for Vert.x, and I want to share that journey with you.

Not to defend VMWare. But any company would do this. And if you work for any company you will probably see in your contract or employee handbook that any projects/ideas/inventions that you create while working for that company, during company hours is the property of the company and not the person.

IANAL, but some things are very clearly VMMware's IP as per my employment contract (domain, blog, vert.x trademark, my code contributions). Other claims are most likely frivolous (claim to the github project *itself*, or the google group *itself* (i.e. not the contents)).

HOWEVER I complied with all demands since I have no appetite for litigation with them. My complying with their demands does not imply that I think they were all valid though.

As to "any company would do this": That's not really true. A good example of a company that _did not_ take search a path in a similar situation is Red Hat, when the project lead of Netty left RHT to join another company. Instead RHT chose to let him continue to use the name and domain after he had left the company. Now that project is a great success and has full time employees working on it from both RHT and the other company.

Exactly and there are also a lot of other contributors in Netty now.. So I don't see why they act in such an aggressive way..

I don't know if vert.x started up before Tim joined VMWare, but if it was started while Tim was at VMWare and VMWare paid Tim specifially for this project, then unfortunately, it does belong to VMWare.

Now with all that note.

I am totally +1 on a fork. I still think it should be hosted on GitHub with a simple Apache license. No need to be an official Apache or Codehaus project.

If there is a fork, it is really, extremely important to us that it is done very quickly. I am very worried as we staked a big part of our company on vert.x and if there isn't a resolution really soon, we might be forced to have to not use vert.x Even though I hope more than anything we don't have to do something as drastic as changing.

A fork is an option, but we should review all possibilities first. A neutral org does have some positive points, and VMW does seem to be amenable to such a solution. We shouldn't jump to any conclusions yet.

Well if that is the easiest way to reach some solution it might be the best to "just" do it.

Thanks Tim and the rest of the community for all your hard work on vert.x it is greatly appreciated.

we decided to use Vert.x over NodeJS because it's still a growing project and we have plenty of ways to give back: By contributing code, add documentation/blog posts/resources, help answering questions on the mailing list/IRC and things like that. When I read your post, I thought all of that might be lost. I just hope that one of the presented alternatives will work out very soon.

If you decide for a fork or separately managed group, we will definitely adapt to the path you are taking. Please try to decide soon, but don't forget to get any needed permission from your new employer. Even though RHT might be more laid back in terms of supporting OSS (from what I read in this group and on Twitter about this announcement): I doubt they are going to support Vert.x in the long run if they don't have some kind of real return value. Do they use it in production in some projects? Do they get copyrights/trademarks?

Our start-up project relies heavily on your code and we want to continue using it. That being said, we will continue contributing to support you and your project as best as we can.

Personally, I would favor a separated OSS group, if that means that they help the project if you or your employer retires from Vert.x and attract more core contributors to the project. If you want to go with a simple fork under a new name, I hope to see more contributors in the near future, to be sure this project will be supported in the long run.

-Joern

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 2:12:23 PM UTC+1, Tim Fox wrote:

Dear Vert.x Community,

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

I am deeply committed to you as a community, and I would love to continue leading Vert.x, in one form or another, to the next generation. The 1.x series of Vert.x has stoked a huge amount of interest, and the future looks incredibly bright for 2.0. I am hugely excited about the opportunities there, and I believe that you share this excitement. 2013 is potentially a huge year for Vert.x, and I want to share that journey with you.

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

I am deeply committed to you as a community, and I would love to continue leading Vert.x, in one form or another, to the next generation. The 1.x series of Vert.x has stoked a huge amount of interest, and the future looks incredibly bright for 2.0. I am hugely excited about the opportunities there, and I believe that you share this excitement. 2013 is potentially a huge year for Vert.x, and I want to share that journey with you.

Interesting how people point finger at VMware and think they know what VMware wants or doesn't.

I've heard RHT and VMW are preparing a joint answer to reassure everybody that both companies want the success of the project and both want to contribute to its development in the best interest of the community.

So let's all be patient and not judge anybody without knowing the whole story :-)

Note: this is my 1st post to group; I don't usually participate publically; but yes....

Put it under Apache Foundation so Japan and China and Every Other Country can conduct Industrial Espionage that much easier and surpass this shit as well as the chips that Huawei and other dangers can put to us.....

however you spel that stupid company.t

Anyway...

Screw the apache foundation; congrats to vert.x project and anyone that put work into it and isn't working yet or lives here yet today that wants to still be a part of it and congrats to VMWARE ;-).

If you're pissed off, and had a stake in it; ask for a visa and salary and job and relocation... whats the big deal.

why dont people like commercialization

On Wednesday, January 9, 2013 12:54:58 AM UTC-5, Alex Tkachman wrote:

After giving some thoughts to it I think the best for community would be if both RHT and VMW will support moving project under Apache Foundatio

I think that the reason fingers were pointed was because there was no effort at communication by VMWare whatsoever beyond their private dealings with Tim, so those were the only actions people had on which to make judgments. It would have made more sense for someone representing VMWare to post on the google group outlining the reasoning behind the requests (demands) made of Tim as well as the plan going forward.

That said, I would say that VMWare has been pretty good as regards OSS. I think though that a lot of us would like a bit more clarity as to what the vision is (near and long-term) for vert.x assuming that VMWare will be driving that vision.

this is exactly the problem. we point fingers BECAUSE we don't know what you do or doesn't want.

Note that I'm not representing VMware here, I'm just speaking with my own personal voice :-)

RHT and VMW are currently in discussions, and VMW is waiting for RHT's agreement on the message to send to the community. So the ball is currently in the RHT camp.

It's an error to disclose anything here till the agreement between the companies are done as it makes the whole community worry, although there's no reason to.

I had advised Tim to wait before sending such an email, as it'll make the community worry without sane reasons, and I was right, as that's what happened :-(

Everyone now thinks VMW is evil and says bad things about VMW, although it funded the creation and development of Vert.x and *does* want to continue helping the project and letting it prosper and evolve to the benefit of the whole community.

the only way vmw addressed this community till now was through the legal threats to tim described above.

You only heard Tim's vision of the story and you're making judgements without knowing the whole situation or all the details of what happened.

Rest assured that both RHT and VMW want the project to be successful and the community to be happy.

So it makes me sad to see people so vehemently say bad things about VMW because of this worrisome biased email to the community :-(

Big companies take time to agree on things, so let's all be patient, please!

The joint RHT / VMW message will come, once RHT is happy with the message.

I think that the reason fingers were pointed was because there was no effort at communication by VMWare whatsoever beyond their private dealings with Tim,

VMW hasn't communicated yet because they wait for RHT's feedback on what they both jointly will say soon.

The ball is in RHT's camp for now.

Big companies are slow at remote tennis games, without even mentioning the holiday breaks and the time zone differences...

so those were the only actions people had on which to make judgments. It would have made more sense for someone representing VMWare to post on the google group outlining the reasoning behind the requests (demands) made of Tim as well as the plan going forward.

By the way I'm not sure the companies should give such information, as it's private discussions between them.

All I can say is that both companies are currently discussing.

VMW wants to have their message the soonest out, but we're waiting to hear from the RHT folks in the Pacific time zone, so it's taking time :-(

That said, I would say that VMWare has been pretty good as regards OSS. I think though that a lot of us would like a bit more clarity as to what the vision is (near and long-term) for vert.x assuming that VMWare will be driving that vision.

I also believe VMware's been good with OSS, as they've allowed nice ecosystems to propser (think Spring, Groovy, Grails, RabbitMQ, etc) and they sincerly want Vert.x community and project to thrive.

this is exactly the problem. we point fingers BECAUSE
we don't know what you do or doesn't want.

Note that I'm not representing VMware here,
I'm just speaking with my own personal voice :-)

RHT and VMW are currently in discussions, and
VMW is waiting for RHT's agreement on the message to send
to the community. So the ball is currently in the RHT
camp.

It's an error to disclose anything here till
the agreement between the companies are done as it makes
the whole community worry, although there's no reason to.

I had advised Tim to wait before sending such
an email, as it'll make the community worry without sane
reasons, and I was right, as that's what happened :-(

Everyone now thinks VMW is evil and says bad
things about VMW, although it funded the creation and
development of Vert.x and *does* want to continue helping
the project and letting it prosper and evolve to the
benefit of the whole community.

the only way vmw addressed this community till now
was through the legal threats to tim described above.

You only heard Tim's vision of the story

That is not correct. The post I made is RHT's point of view, it is
_not_ my personal opinion, and was fully approved and vetted by RHT
before it went out.

Any other joint post today will be a clarification of that.

and you're making judgements without knowing
the whole situation or all the details of what happened.

Rest assured that both RHT and VMW want the project to be
successful and the community to be happy.

So it makes me sad to see people so vehemently
say bad things about VMW because of this worrisome biased
email to the community :-(

Big companies take time to agree on things, so
let's all be patient, please!

The joint RHT / VMW message will come, once
RHT is happy with the message.

On 09/01/2013 09:53, Alex Tkachman wrote:
> Guilaume, it's fair enough what you and Pid say except big companies
> (and I point finger to both and all others) have big history of screwing
> community as good as contribute a lot to community.
>
> Just please make sure that people involved in VmWare are aware that
> community is pissed and worried.

They are.

p

> And maybe Tim been too fast to make all this crap public. But from my
> prospective always better to be aware and try to influence final
> resolution as strong as community could.
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 10:17 AM, Guillaume Laforge <glaf...@gmail.com

> <mailto:glaf...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Interesting how people point finger at VMware and think they know
> what VMware wants or doesn't.
> I've heard RHT and VMW are preparing a joint answer to reassure
> everybody that both companies want the success of the project and
> both want to contribute to its development in the best interest of
> the community.
> So let's all be patient and not judge anybody without knowing the
> whole story :-)
> Stay tuned!
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 9:06 AM, Asher Tarnopolski <ata...@gmail.com

> <mailto:ata...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> alex, the only problem is that vmw doesn't want it to be done
> this way. although, there was no indication in tim's post about
> rht willingness to pay him for dealing with vert.x .
>
>
> On Wednesday, January 9, 2013 7:54:58 AM UTC+2, Alex Tkachman wrote:
>
> After giving some thoughts to it I think the best for
> community would be if both RHT and VMW will support moving
> project under Apache Foundation.
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 3:12 PM, Tim Fox <timv...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Dear Vert.x Community,
>
> As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of
> December and started at Red Hat last week.
>
> In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the
> Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that
> VMware would continue to let me continue to administer
> the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.
>
> On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware
> lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that
> I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all
> administrative rights over the following things: The
> Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the

this is exactly the problem. we point fingers BECAUSE
we don't know what you do or doesn't want.

Note that I'm not representing VMware here,
I'm just speaking with my own personal voice :-)

RHT and VMW are currently in discussions, and
VMW is waiting for RHT's agreement on the message to send
to the community. So the ball is currently in the RHT
camp.

It's an error to disclose anything here till
the agreement between the companies are done as it makes
the whole community worry, although there's no reason to.

I had advised Tim to wait before sending such
an email, as it'll make the community worry without sane
reasons,

We put out an announcement because VMW forced our hand. I was under
a legal obligation to return their "IP" immediately, and could delay
no further. I asked for an extension to this delay so we could
discuss _sensibly_, but this was refused.

The sensible path for VMW would have been to hold back the lawyers
until a proper agreement could (or could not) be reached, but VMW
decided not to take that path.

Since I had to carry out their demands _without further delay_ and
those actions required changing the administrative controller of the
project then I had a duty as project lead to tell the community.

I have users who have staked their projects on Vert.x and they need
to know when important changes in the control/administration of the
project occur so they can make informed assessments of any perceived
risk.

If I was to hide such important changes from the community I would
be in dereliction of my duties as project lead.

and I was right, as that's what happened :-(

Everyone now thinks VMW is evil and says bad
things about VMW, although it funded the creation and
development of Vert.x and *does* want to continue helping
the project and letting it prosper and evolve to the
benefit of the whole community.

the only way vmw addressed this community till now
was through the legal threats to tim described above.

You only heard Tim's vision of the story and
you're making judgements without knowing the whole
situation or all the details of what happened.

Rest assured that both RHT and VMW want the project to be
successful and the community to be happy.

So it makes me sad to see people so vehemently
say bad things about VMW because of this worrisome biased
email to the community :-(

Big companies take time to agree on things, so
let's all be patient, please!

The joint RHT / VMW message will come, once
RHT is happy with the message.

Both Tim and Pid have done well by me in terms of communicating status
at the developer level - I'm very thankful for that.

However, from them, we now know that there are negotiations going on
between the corporate entities *not* in the open *without* input from
the community with potentially substantial ramifications on end-users.
Obviously not everyone needs to be involved with everything, but the
continued "official" silence from both companies is unacceptable.

Both those companies have contributed a lot to the community over the
years on a number of different projects. I've come to know some folks
personally from both companies on the engineering and community
management side and my hackles are up because I know that both those
organizations usually run much tighter ships than this with regards to
managing their projects (Groovy and the evolution of Netty being
excellent examples).

Given this, I can't help but think there is something else going on.
But, as other people have rightly pointed out, it's all conjecture -
particularly without any attempts at official involvement or
communication from either camp.

I *eagerly* await an official response. We've recently staked a lot on vertx.

I have users who have staked their projects on Vert.x and they need
to know when important changes in the control/administration of the
project occur so they can make informed assessments of any perceived
risk.

And this is exactly where we stand, and there are millions of dollars that could be at stake, and we are already being affected by this. It is important that we can make decisions on this quickly.

As someone in the rare position of having worked for both companies as a full time employee and as a contractor, and loving both companies, I know something will be worked out. At this time, I think we should just wait till we hear what happens and not jump to conclusions, like I had earlier.

What Tim has stated has obviously raised concerns on this group and elsewhere. So it's important that we try to allay any fears and uncertainty that the community has about the vert.x project and state clearly that VMware and Red Hat are still very much in active discussion regarding how best to support the vert.x project going forwards. This is something that both companies are extremely keen to do.

We've been discussing various options, including whether to move the project to an open source software foundation, and would very much like to hear the views of the community.

Tim's continued status as project lead is something that both companies feel is an essential component to the success of the project. We see no reason for this to change and wish to assure everyone on that point.

With the benefit of the support from *both* Red Hat and VMware we agree that the vert.x project has an excellent opportunity to continue to build on its popularity and successes to date and have an exciting 2013.

We'd really appreciate if everyone was patient and continued to contribute positively to the discussions on the future in this public forum, as has been the case. Many thanks to all of the input - it has not gone unnoticed.

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

I am deeply committed to you as a community, and I would love to continue leading Vert.x, in one form or another, to the next generation. The 1.x series of Vert.x has stoked a huge amount of interest, and the future looks incredibly bright for 2.0. I am hugely excited about the opportunities there, and I believe that you share this excitement. 2013 is potentially a huge year for Vert.x, and I want to share that journey with you.

-Tim

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "vert.x" group.

To move forward, I'm a big fan of Apache Software Foundation. I said
this way further up, but moving into incubation there given the size
and (now obvious) passion of the community would be straightforward.

I'd like to add that I believe Tim's statement of the facts as they occurred was, well, factual. I read his initial statement before he posted it, and I approved of it. I know for certain that Tim's interest is in doing what's best for the community, first and foremost. It is this belief in open-source and the principles of community that make me proud to have Tim on our team. Uncertainty exists in an informational vacuum, and Tim attempted to fill the space with the facts that were available to him. I hope that we (Red Hat and VMware) can continue to find a way to ensure Tim's leadership and vision of the project, be it through a foundation, such as the Apache Software Foundation or Eclipse Foundation, or through other means. The community has certainly offered some insight into its desires, and I hope it continues to voice it's opinions, concerns and thoughts.

On 09/01/2013 17:52, Mark Little wrote:
> What Tim has stated has obviously raised concerns on this group
> and elsewhere. So it's important that we try to allay any fears
> and uncertainty that the community has about the vert.x project and
> state clearly that VMware and Red Hat are still very much in
> active discussion regarding how best to support the vert.x project
> going forwards. This is something that both companies are extremely
> keen to do.
>
> We've been discussing various options, including whether to move
> the project to an open source software foundation, and would very
> much like to hear the views of the community.
>
> Tim's continued status as project lead is something that both companies
> feel is an essential component to the success of the project. We see no
> reason for this to change and wish to assure everyone on that point.
>
> With the benefit of the support from *both* Red Hat and VMware we agree
> that the vert.x project has an excellent opportunity to continue to
> build on its popularity and successes to date and have an exciting 2013.
>
> We'd really appreciate if everyone was patient and continued
> to contribute positively to the discussions on the future in this
> public forum, as has been the case. Many thanks to all of the input - it
> has not gone unnoticed.
>
> For RedHat: Mark Little, VP Red Hat/JBoss.
> For VMware: Alexis Richardson, Senior Director, VMware Inc.

Thanks for the post - in my opinion, this is the best option. If there was a fork, we would miss contributions by pid and other VMware members. Don't forget that we still wait for the Vert.x scala mod ;)

I just hope Tim did not get too frustrated and demotivated by the latest events. As long as he continues to lead (t)his project, I'm very confident everything works out well.

-1 for moving to Apache...as much as I love Apache's software and OSS model and all the great libraries that come out of Apache, I do not feel like vert.x is a fit for Apache. The Apache license, sure, but the actual incubating and project status, no. Apache has always seemed to me as a great place for libraries, not standalone applications/servers (one could argue vert.x as a library, but it's more of a container than a library).

To fork or to not fork depends purely on the joint agreement of RedHat and VMWare and no decision can really be made until we know more about where both companies stand and the agreements they reach. Regardless, +1 to keep it on GitHub as an independent organization and open source project, similar to how Netty has moved from JBoss to its own organization. Ultimately, it takes $$ to finance the project, hence companies like Apache, VMW, and RHT, but ultimately the community will back an independent project and keep it running.

Above all, congratulations on Tim on his move to RedHat and I hope the change is for the best. Thanks for VMWare for their paid support of OSS, not only on vert.x, but for continuing the success of other OSS including Spring, Grails, Groovy, etc. Thanks to both VMWare and RedHat for being open-minded and working through this process (ignoring the suits and lawyers from that picture). vert.x is not going anywhere as long as the community backs it. This is just a wrinkle in the picture which will soon be replaced by much more success and great features. Here's to seeing 2.0 come to great fruition!

Nick

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 8:12:23 AM UTC-5, Tim Fox wrote:

Dear Vert.x Community,

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

I am deeply committed to you as a community, and I would love to continue leading Vert.x, in one form or another, to the next generation. The 1.x series of Vert.x has stoked a huge amount of interest, and the future looks incredibly bright for 2.0. I am hugely excited about the opportunities there, and I believe that you share this excitement. 2013 is potentially a huge year for Vert.x, and I want to share that journey with you.

I read Mark's input as RedHat and VMWare would be supportive of whatever
option the community decided to do. Their primary objective was to
allay any fears that "corporate" concerns would override the needs of
the community. That said, if you look what Hudson did after Oracle's
acquisition of Sun, especially after Oracle made similar statements to
what VMWare/RedHat made, it may be worth putting thought into forking
and making Vert.x truly open source.

It may also be worth identifying what is truly in the best interest of
the community in the long-run, and whether forking supports those goals
or if keeping Vert.x' infrastructure as it stands makes sense.

In the interest of providing information, the Apache Software
Foundation hosts both library projects (eg. Apache Commons) and
several high-use enterprise class applications and servers
(Geronimo, Karaf, ServiceMix, etc). In fact, the "flagship"
project of the ASF is the Apache Web-Server, still the most used
web-server in the world today.

Many projects choose to use Github to source-code version control
(Kalumet is the first example of many that comes to mind). As
such, having a project on the ASF and using Git won't pose any
issues. Also, projects participating in the incubator process in
ASF are assigned mentors who work hard to ensure issues like this
are smoothed over fairly quickly and with minimal impact to the
project.

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "vert.x" group.

On 09/01/2013 22:48, GMail wrote:
> Pid,
>
> I read Mark's input as RedHat and VMWare would be supportive of whatever
> option the community decided to do. Their primary objective was to
> allay any fears that "corporate" concerns would override the needs of
> the community. That said, if you look what Hudson did after Oracle's
> acquisition of Sun, especially after Oracle made similar statements to
> what VMWare/RedHat made, it may be worth putting thought into forking
> and making Vert.x truly open source.
>
> It may also be worth identifying what is truly in the best interest of
> the community in the long-run, and whether forking supports those goals
> or if keeping Vert.x' infrastructure as it stands makes sense.

I think that an outcome that involves the minimum disruption, a single
community and the support of both companies is preferable and achievable.

If seriously interested in moving to the ASF, let me know. I'd love to answer any questions you may have.

And yes, even in this day and age, having FOSS projects hosted in neutral foundations make a lot of sense, for the exact kind of reasons you see here. It allows, but mostly ensures, that the community are masters of their own fate.

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 9:57:52 AM UTC-5, Tim Fox wrote:

On Tuesday, 8 January 2013 13:44:41 UTC, 赵普明 wrote:

在 2013年1月8日星期二UTC+8下午9时12分23秒，Tim Fox写道：

Dear Vert.x Community,

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

Could you list the options in your mind?

The most obvious two options would be:

1) Fork

2) Find a neutral organisation (neither controlled by VMW or RHT) to host the organisation.

I think we need to explore both those options.

Just found that you are starting version 2.0, is that a big change compared to 1.x?

If so, maybe you could re-brand vert.x 2.0 into something new, with a name that starts with 'R' - V for VMware, R for Redhat :-)

Our company has already invested in vert.x (our new service is running using vert.x 1.2.3.final), so I'm a little concerned.

I wouldn't be too concerned. Vert.x is not going to disappear altogether.

However the project vehicle or governance model might change.

I am deeply committed to you as a community, and I would love to continue leading Vert.x, in one form or another, to the next generation. The 1.x series of Vert.x has stoked a huge amount of interest, and the future looks incredibly bright for 2.0. I am hugely excited about the opportunities there, and I believe that you share this excitement. 2013 is potentially a huge year for Vert.x, and I want to share that journey with you.

a) path of least resistance right now, b) keeps all other options open,c) vert.x could use re-branding irrespective of this mess

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 5:12:23 AM UTC-8, Tim Fox wrote:

Dear Vert.x Community,

As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of December and started at Red Hat last week.

In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project after I had left their employment.

On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project, the Vert.x google group, the domain vertx.io and the Vert.x blog.

In response I proposed that VMware give me permission (i.e. grant a license) for me to continue to use the Vert.x trademark and domain after I left their employment. This proposal was refused.

There were further talks between VMW and RHT which failed to come to a better solution.

I am legally obliged to respect VMware's IP. Therefore to avoid litigation I have done the following:

1. Transfer ownership of the vertx domain to VMware

2. Transfer ownership of the Vert.x blog to VMware

3. Transfer ownership of the vert-x organisation in github to VMware

4. Transfer ownership of the vert.x Google Group to Vmware

This means I am no longer administrator of any of the above, although I am still able to "manage" the google group and commit to the projects under the vert-x umbrella.

I am very concerned about this turn of events, as I understand it creates uncertainty in the Vert.x community.

For now, I will continue leading the Vert.x community the best I can under these restrictions, but we, as a community need to consider what this means for the future of Vert.x and what is the best way to take the project forward.

I don't have the answers to that right now, but there are several options. I would like to make sure we have some kind of concensus in the community before jumping to a conclusion.

I am deeply committed to you as a community, and I would love to continue leading Vert.x, in one form or another, to the next generation. The 1.x series of Vert.x has stoked a huge amount of interest, and the future looks incredibly bright for 2.0. I am hugely excited about the opportunities there, and I believe that you share this excitement. 2013 is potentially a huge year for Vert.x, and I want to share that journey with you.

In the interests of completeness, someone else on this thread mentioned the Eclipse Foundation as another possible home. I'm also Red Hat's primary representative on the JCP EC and the Eclipse representative, Mike Milinkovich, has sent the following materials for those people interested in understanding that Eclipse is not just about the IDE these days. Both Red Hat and VMWare work in a number of Eclipse projects, so it's somewhere we have experience and I feel it could be a good home for vert.x.

Mark.

·Reliable infrastructure

o99.98% uptime for the last five years

oWe have moved everything over to git. We are now completely committed as a community to git.

oWe have full-time IT staff to support our core services.

·Additional services

oWe offer a common build infrastructure that all projects are welcome to use. Makes it a lot easier to get your new project’s builds going.

§Supported by a full-time build engineer

oGerrit is offered as a core service, available to all projects.

oAll the usual stuff: bugzilla, wiki, mailing lists, user forums, ….

oBetter support for Maven and Nexus coming soon….

·Flexibility

oAs a community, we embrace pragmatism over dogma.

oProjects can ask for Board approval for alternate licenses

§Many Eclipse projects are dual-licensed EPL+BSD or EPL+ALv2

§Several projects are BSD-only

oWithin the general scope of the Eclipse development and IP processes, projects are free to create their own processes and culture. Lots of flexibility is built in, and we don’t try to enforce culture.

·Clear processes

oAll of our development processes are documented and described, and revisions happen transparently and via a clear process. Openness, transparency and meritocracy are the fundamental values inherent in our processes.

oWe have full-time staff to help projects get started, and to guide them whenever required.

oBest-of-breed IP due diligence (a huge help in commercial and enterprise adoption)

oInitial committer lists and project leader(s) are decided by the project proposers, and the existing community does not get to add to that list. Even key community leaders can only join a new or existing project by following the full meritocratic process.

·Community reach

oMillions of developers use Eclipse

oHundreds of companies build products based on Eclipse technologies.

oEclipse runtime community large and growing

§Ref: projects like Jetty, Equinox and Virgo are widely used and respected

·Predictability

oThere is very strong communication and co-ordination between projects. As least for the ones that want it.

oHave shipped the Eclipse simultaneous release on-time to the day for 9 years. (To be clear, projects choose whether they want to join. Participation is not mandated.)

·Vendor neutral

oAll of our processes and values are based on the notion that Eclipse must be free of vendor control. Openness, transparency and meritocracy ensure that this is the case.

>-1 for moving to Apache...as much as I love Apache's software and OSS model and all the great libraries that come out of Apache, I do not feel like vert.x is a fit for >Apache. The Apache license, sure, but the actual incubating and project status, no. Apache has always seemed to me as a great place for libraries, not >standalone applications/servers (one could argue vert.x as a library, but it's more of a container than a library).

Not a great place for standalone applications/servers ? You're kidding ?

Do you know HTTPd ? Did you miss Tomcat ? What about ActiveMQ ? What about Cassandra ? Camel ? Apache DS ?

Another Open Source project killed by big business. Shame on Vmware - authors won't touch it now, it's as good as dead and buried. I thought Oracle were bad but VMWare take the biscuit. I won't be touching anything VMWare have their mitts on in future.

I've managed to find info on it now thanks - but I still think this brings up a serious issue for open source. Anyone working for VMware etc on an "open source" project mean that the license is actually not valid - they can claim it was done whilst in their employ and good luck finding a lawyer to fight that one. VMware gave in this time (suggest announcement on Eclipse a rather than read through 80 replies) but there are a LOT of other projects in the same boat with people employed who work on "open source" projects.

Sorry for the hasty reply initially but I was taking my cue from a tweet I got.

On 11/02/2013 12:02, Kevin McCaughey wrote:
> I've managed to find info on it now thanks - but I still think this
> brings up a serious issue for open source. Anyone working for VMware etc
> on an "open source" project mean that the license is actually not valid
> - they can claim it was done whilst in their employ and good luck
> finding a lawyer to fight that one. VMware gave in this time (suggest
> announcement on Eclipse a rather than read through 80 replies) but there
> are a LOT of other projects in the same boat with people employed who
> work on "open source" projects.
>
> Sorry for the hasty reply initially but I was taking my cue from a tweet
> I got.

No worries. Just didn't want you to be put off the project by old news.

> <javascript:>> wrote:
>
>> Another Open Source project killed by big business. Shame on
>> Vmware - authors won't touch it now, it's as good as dead and buried.
>
> That's not an accurate description of the situation.
>
> Please take the time to read the subsequent threads. Vert.x is now
> headed for the Eclipse Foundation and fortunately Tim is very much
> still involved and working hard on v2.0.
>
>
> p
>
>
>
>> I thought Oracle were bad but VMWare take the biscuit. I won't be
>> touching anything VMWare have their mitts on in future.
>
>> On Tuesday, 8 January 2013 13:12:23 UTC, Tim Fox wrote:
>>
>> Dear Vert.x Community,
>>
>> As many of you already know I left VMware at the end of
>> December and started at Red Hat last week.
>>
>> In the spirit of open source and as a commitment to the Vert.x
>> community I had expected (perhaps naively) that VMware would
>> continue to let me continue to administer the Vert.x project
>> after I had left their employment.
>>
>> On the 28th December I received a letter from VMware lawyers
>> (delivered to my door in person, no less!) that I must
>> immediately give up and transfer to VMware all administrative
>> rights over the following things: The Vert.x github project,

> I've managed to find info on it now thanks - but I still think this
> brings up a serious issue for open source. Anyone working for VMware
> etc on an "open source" project mean that the license is actually not
> valid - they can claim it was done whilst in their employ and good
> luck finding a lawyer to fight that one. VMware gave in this time
> (suggest announcement on Eclipse a rather than read through 80
> replies) but there are a LOT of other projects in the same boat with
> people employed who work on "open source" projects.
>

Open-source doesn't mean do what you want (unless the license is WTFPL).
You can be open-source and still own IP, that's two different beasts and
that's the whole discussion here. Moving to Eclipse is a decision on IP
more than a decision on open source and taking such decisions take time.

To be fair (and I've been critical of VMWare earlier in this story over the way I saw their handling of this whole situation),

VMWare didn't "give in" as regards the license (and there's no evidence in discussions above that they resisted the move to a foundation, so I'm not sure where the concept of "giving in" comes from). I didn't see anything in Tim's original post (may have missed subsequent ones) which ever suggested that VMWare might be trying to exert control over the source codebase. Much as I would say VMWare were possibly a little heavy-handed initially, that heavy-handedness was restricted to essentially administrative elements.

The move to Eclipse makes very good sense as a mechanism for avoiding administrative wrangling in future. However, portraying this story as some kind of "Big Business vs Open Source" fight is quite a misrepresentation.